Philanthropist Endows $500,000 SME Grant For Widows

The Founder/President of Felix King Foundation, Ambassador Felix King has announced a new initiative tagged Widows Economic Progress Meetings (WeProgress) with $500,000 funding grants for the 2018/19 project calendar year.

The WeProgress, which is wired to turn disadvantaged widows into small business owners, will be officially unveiled to public on the International Widows Day June 23, 2018 in Lagos.

The Weprogress project is a pan-Nigeria program and targeted at disadvantaged widows and active poor rural women with single mother’s status in Nigeria communities were widows’ maltreatment is still very prevalent. The project will directly touch 5,400 widows and poor rural women in over 380 cooperative meeting groups’ format.

According to the founder of the foundation, today, over 90 percent of these women struggle to own small business and are denied access to capital. “Weprogress will help disadvantaged widows and active poor rural women in Nigeria communities gain access to capital they need to build their small businesses,” he said adding that “So that they too can contribute to the prosperity of their families and that of their communities”.

The rural based program will encourage participants to form a meeting group of 10 to 20 women, appoint their meeting group representatives, get a verification letter from the recognized community head. And once the group is certified, the foundation will give a business rotational grant to the Meeting group with the Community Head acting as patron.

On how the grant will be disbursed, Ambassador King said this project is a woman-help-woman scheme. According to him “Beneficiaries are expected to contribute 40 percent of their initial capital grant received from the Foundation in a year to the purse of the meeting group for four persons, who initially did not make the meeting group and two persons in 6 months.”

For what will the 20 percent contribution be used for? King stated “The 20per cent contribution from members will be extended to new members that will be nominated by the meeting group to benefit.”

For instance, he said, “If 10 people are in a meeting group and received N50,000 each, they are expected to contribute N10,000 each to the purse of the meeting group which will amount to N100,000 within 6 months period.

“This N100,000 will be given to 2 new members as nominated by the meeting group. And at the end of 12 months, a 10 membership group meeting will grow to 14 members,” he said.